A Study in Silver and Gold
by SapSorrow
Summary: Flashback to a happier time, told in retrospect. Mostly porn in later chapters, with much scene setting and vague hints of plot. Thorki, M rated for graphic sexual content.


**A Study in Silver and Gold**

1.

So tell me –

Tell me if you remember a day so warm it seemed the birds stopped singing for laziness; when the sunlight poured into the courtyard, bearing with it the call and scent of forest and sea, mountain and lake. All the coolest corners of the realm begged to be explored that day, to be taken.

Hear the sound of hooves in the yards, as from all the palatial quarters of Asgard people rode out to adventure in the sweetness of that air and warmth. Smell the breeze and beg to be carried away on it once more, as we were carried then.

We were so young then, barely bordering on adulthood. Sometimes in those days we still forgot and laughed like children at things nobody else heard or were even there to begin with. I would still come to you in the night with the terror I could not understand; when my vaulted rooms and the huge pillars of home seemed inexplicably alien to me and you were the only thing that seemed to make sense. I remember how you would hide beneath heavy sheets with me and beg illusions from my finger tips to light and warm our little cave. My enchantments would light in your eyes like reflections on the sea and you laughed and pushed me when I wouldn't let you touch them as I twinkled them out into a new warm darkness in which I was no longer scared.

You said I looked like a spirit myself in that dark soft world of ours and you looked at me with such honest wonderment that I almost felt like I might be a good one.

I wonder if you knew how _you _looked that morning; sunlight so suited you as the moon light suited me. You _shone _on your horse, riding out that day – the golden prince of Asgard. I was not even jealous then – not much, content just to bask in that light. Given the number of faces that turned towards you like sunflowers I wonder if you even noticed mine. Given later events I can only imagine that actually – you did. As it was you attention _was _all upon me, even if it was just to yell merrily –

"Loki!" – you rode up to me, Svaoilfari in something of a skittish mood – "Loki swap with me? Svaoilfari's not right with me today."

I daresay I raise my eyebrows and edged away on Gyllir –

"Not a chance!" I replied – "That stallion's been making eyes at me ever since – well –" I'd like to say I didn't blush but I'm sure I did. At any rate I was convinced that that horse still wanted a piece of me. You just rolled your eyes at me and bellowed across the courtyard at Volstagg instead –

"Volstagg! Swap horses? Loki's being an obstreperous ass!"

I whistled gently through my teeth as you and Volstagg genially affected the horse exchange.

"My my brother – you've been reading _books _again haven't you?"

You looked at me tolerantly –

"Contrary to common opinion Loki I am not an _entirely _witless idiot."

"Oh don't worry – " I countered – "It's not _common _opinion – it's just mine."

You sighed –

"Of all the people with whom I could spend a day like today –"

"Oh should I be touched? I do apologise –"

"Shut up Loki" you sighed, yet still genially turned down the several requests thrown out from others to join them on their ventures. I confess I experienced a twinge of self doubt at that and, looking down, I muttered –

"You can go with them if you want"

"Loki –" you growled affectionately, frowning at me – "Shut up!" – you patted me on the shoulder in a manner I think you meant as brotherly but which took in that stroke at the back of the neck that you always gave me to comfort, knowing that I positively purred when you touched that spot. I do not know if you knew you were also stroking my hair a little – but yes, you were.

I looked back up, reassured so easily in those days and you grinned to see me smile.

"Besides you shrugged with casual arrogance – "Who else could I so easily beat to that line of trees?" You gestured out the front gate and I accepted the challenge easily –

"You are _on!"_

Remember how we did not need to count or speak, but you looked at me with a smile that I reflected back at you and we moved as one, galloping out and into the fields in a great shared rush of motion. Remember the feel of wind in the hair, deliciously cool on the skin in the heat and the way the blood stirred to ride out thus, together. Remember the sound and the fury of hooves on the earth and the pounding that framed the world in those moments.

And did you turn to me as I passed you, smiling brightly with the wind in your hair? Did you laugh at the share joy of living in a second such as this and did I share in your smiles, your delight? Or is it just nostalgia painting these details in? Even if it is would that make it any less real? Sometimes the things we imagine are at least as important, as powerful as the facts.

Hard to believe now that that was me, pulling hard to a halt beside those first trees, laughing as you came in not far behind.

"You were saying something?"

"Was I?" You feigned ignorance, and partially you feigned you irritation – enjoying the fact that there were things at which I could actually beat you – when there was nobody else who even posed much of a challenge, though you were still almost as sore a loser as I could be.

"Oh and you know it! And look – I _did _beat you!"

"Well –" you grimaced, ungraciously – "But only because I let you."

I shook my head, laughing at you silently – yet visibly I am sure –

"You are such a _liar _brother!"

"They do say it takes one to know –"

I pushed you, rocking you in the saddle ad obviously you pushed back. Ever the brute _your _push took me right off my horse. I thank mother for the trickery that made it look as though I landed on my feet. You laughed;

"Right!" I said, half annoyed, half – I admit – amused – "Come down here and fight me like a man!"

You gave me that tolerant, teasing _oh little brother _face.

"Well –" you shrugged – I suppose somebody has to show you how!"

"You take that back!" I returned, surreptitiously magically unfastening everything that held your tack in place.

"How can I take it back?" You positively beamed, so proud at the quickness of you frankly sub – par retort – "It was a gift!" – and with a hard tug at your stirrup I pulled you right off the horse, saddle and all. _You _did not make it look graceful.

"Loki!" You growled from a prostrate pose – "That is _not _how men fight!"

"You you're right –" I said slowly – "Apparently it's how they fall on their –"

_That _got you back up on your feet quickly and swinging a clumsy punch at me. I dodged of course, and cackled when you hit a tree instead, skipping aside repeatedly as you came at me –

"Damn you Loki!" you growled – "I thought you said fight like a man – you evade like a little girl!" I confess I did evade further – I always did like to goad you so as to see how imaginative your insults could get.

"The Lady Sif is more of a man than you are!" Not very, evidently.

"The Lady Sif is more of a man than _you _are!" I retorted, although giving that Lady's abilities it was a poor insult – "Anyway you'd know of course –"

You growled again at that and caught me by the collar. I flashed a grin at you –

"Turn you down did she? Well I can't say I blame her –"

You could always beat me easily enough in a wrestle, though this never did stop you delighting in taking me down. Men don't like to admit much how intimate fighting can be – how close; the tension, the friction and the shared space that is the sweetest we can generally speak of. But then I have always been one for saying more than I probably should. Beatable though I was I was still the only person who could hold against your strength for more than a few seconds, and you crushed my shoulders in a grip that would have broken another man's bones. I kicked you in the ankle and you grappled me down , I locked my hands around your neck to drag you with me and you pinned me by the shoulders , pushing me into the ground. Scent of grass and earth and you – leather, rain and sunlight – warm, too damn warm in this heat and your hair tickling my fingers, an inexplicable look in your eyes and me wondering if this would ever go the way it did in my dreams – strange, recent dreams and some of the only ones I thought that I would never share with you.

You were still looking at me so strangely, frowning as though there was something you could not work out – for once I could not read your expression at all, so confused it seemed. Your eyes were dark to the point of black – but then that could have signified many things. There was an awkwardness, suddenly, stronger than there had ever been between us before. I punched you feebly in the shoulder, trying to dispel it; you looked positively dazed –

"Well – let me up already – what are you going to do – kiss me?"

It was a joke, of course, but you let go of me like wildfire, wincing like you were touching coals. You even stumbled a little standing up and for a moment I could almost have seen lightning bolts in your eyes. Whatever it was – and I had half a hunch – you shook it off like a dog shakes water and reached out a rough hand to pull me to my feet. Your palm was warm and your hand lingered a little too long in mine. We broke apart awkwardly and I could feel static, coiled like a burst of magical potential in my palm.

"You have grass on you" you said, to break the awkwardness.

"You put it there" I shot back quickly. You started brushing me off like I was a dishevelled horse until I became impatient and shied away –

"Alright alright – if you wanted to touch me you could have just asked." I don't know why I can't stop myself speaking, I really don't. Just for a moment you gave me that face – _why are you making this worse? _But not for long because you knew me better than to ever ask me something like that.

You snorted and harrumphed at me as you got back onto your horse and by the time we set off again we were back to halfway normal; where the sun was warm and the blue skies overhead were reflected in your eyes. Perhaps you congratulated yourself on a near miss as we rode side by side into the trees; though if you did it was not to be for long. Certainly I cannot forget how you were to me then, golden amongst the green; everything I wanted and everything I wanted to be.

Was it what later transpired that fixed that day so clearly in my mind? Certainly everything to follow only served to carve you, deep and shining, into my being until you became indistinguishable to me from the air itself; warm, alive – and painfully necessary.

_x_

**So, this was gonna be just a one shot (and I wasn't even gonna write it until I'd written some other things!) – but the one shot was going to be what happens in the next chapter so clearly it's already taken on a life of it's own! It could become quite long. **

**Feedback always appreciated – especially here as I'm not at all comfortable writing in first person only I wrote half of it in second and it didn't work, Loki was yelling at me to narrate it himself so I had to re-do the whole thing. Hope it works! Next chapter coming soon!**


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